Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (42 page)

“
Somebody tell me what’s happening!” Seth yelled at the crowd.

“
You went too far this time,” Earl McCronkin said.  He held a large revolver in one hand, against his hip. “You Barretts think you can do anything to anybody.  Took my granddaddy’s farm away.  You think you own this town.”  Several men and women shouted their agreement.

Jenny looked to the police chief, but the man had his arms folded, just keeping watch without interfering.

The front doors to the church opened, and Cassie and Neesha stepped out, their eyes down, looking upset.  They waited on the front stoop of the church, letting the crowd notice them and whisper to each other to look.

When the crowd’s attention was on the open church door, Ashleigh came out, looking awful.  Her hair was dirty and wild, but pinned up to reveal her face.  Bruises covered her face and neck, one eye was black, a lip was swollen, and her left cheek looked cut up and mangled.  She wore only a lace dressing slip, and she was barefoot.  More wounds and fresh bruises were visible on her shoulders, arms, and legs.

The crowd gasped and grumbled at the sight of her.  Many angry looks were cast at Seth and Jenny, who just looked at each other.  Either Ashleigh had accomplished the world’s most incredible make-up job, or she’d had her friends pound her with blunt objects until she bled.

Ashleigh descended the church steps slowly, her eyes on the ground.  Her two friends followed at a careful distance, like bridesmaids, or mourners.

The crowd’s voice fell into low, urgent whispering as Ashleigh crossed the street, then became silent as she stepped on the lawn.  The people parted for her, creating a wide grass avenue toward the courthouse.  Ashleigh walked along the center of it, looking at no one, keeping her eyes down.  It was the way Jenny had walked in public for most of her life.

Ashleigh walked all the way to the first courthouse step, while her two friends lingered back in the crowd.  She looked up at Seth.  She pointed her finger at him.

“He did it,” Ashleigh said.

The crowd erupted in chatter, and a few angry shouts.  Mayor Winder and the two police now made their way through the crowd, to stand behind Ashleigh, looking up at Jenny and Seth.

“She told me about it,” Cassie said.  She glanced at her father, the mayor. “Seth invited her over after church.  He said he wanted to make things right and get back together with her.  So Ashleigh went, because the truth is, she never stopped loving Seth.”

Some of the crowd found this whisper-worthy.

“But it was a trap,” Cassie said. “He assaulted her.  He…” Cassie shook her head.

The crowd muttered, and there were a few more shouts.

“That’s crazy,” Jenny said. “I was at Seth’s.  Ashleigh never came over.”

“
She helped!” Ashleigh jabbed a finger at Jenny. “She beat me.  And she tore off my abstinence ring.” Ashleigh held up her empty left hand, to some gasps.

“
She’s lying,” Seth said, which only seemed to anger the crowd.  Ashleigh’s condition seemed to speak for itself. “It’s what she does.  She manipulates everyone.”

“
Shut up,” Jenny whispered.

“
Why?  It’s true.  Isn’t it, Ashleigh?  Tell them the truth.  Tell them I didn’t do this.  Tell them how your friends Cassie and Neesha beat you up so you could frame me.”

Many outraged voices spoke up in the crowd, and somebody shouted “Get him!”

“I don’t think the truth is working,” Jenny whispered.

“
How can you just let them stand there?” Ashleigh wailed.  She looked to the crowd on her left, the crowd on her right. “Look what they did!  Somebody do something!”

Some of the mob shuffled forward. Everett and two older armed men in hunting jackets got as far as the third courthouse step, with seven steps left to go.  They looked at each other, waiting to see who would go first.  Nobody volunteered.  They were attacking unarmed teenagers, hometown kids.

“Please!” Ashleigh screamed. “Somebody!  Somebody!”

There was some more shuffling forward, but not as much.  Ashleigh turned to face them.

“Won’t anyone protect me?” she asked.  She stepped toward the crowd, extending her hands out, palms up.  She seemed befuddled, as if the intense head bashing by Cassie and Neesha had, just possibly, affected her head. “Come on, everybody.  Touch me.  Touch me!”

They whispered among each other, not sure what to make of this.  Even Cassie and Neesha looked worried and whispered to each other.  Ashleigh wasn’t doing it right.  Her head was too mixed up.

“Fuck!” Ashleigh said. Then she screamed it: “Fuck you all!”

She whirled towards Seth and stalked up the courthouse steps.

On the fourth step, Ashleigh snatched the pump shotgun from Everett’s hands.

On the fifth step, she raised it.

On the sixth step, she pointed it at Seth.

“
Ashleigh,” Seth said. “Put it down.  The police are right behind you.”

Jenny looked.  The police were still on the sidewalk, watching, waiting for the mayor to give an order.  Cassie gripped her father’s forearm and kept whispering in his ear, distracting him.

On the seventh step, Ashleigh squinted an eye and took aim at Seth’s gut.

“
Ashleigh,” Seth said. “Don’t.”

Jenny couldn’t speak, and didn’t even know if she should.  The sound of her voice might set Ashleigh off.  If she moved fast enough, she could kill Ashleigh.  But Ashleigh’s finger was already on the trigger, and Jenny didn’t think she could make it.  She’d probably just startle Ashleigh into shooting.  Better to let Seth talk her down.

On the eighth step, almost to the top, Ashleigh stopped.  Her eyes locked onto Seth’s.

“
Go to hell, Seth,” she said. “I have a heart, too.”

Then she pulled the trigger.  Seth’s heart and ribs exploded through his back and spattered across the courthouse doors.

Seth stumbled backward.  He slammed against the locked door, then slid down along it.  He stopped in a sitting position on the lip of the door sill, and remained there a second, his eyes bulging in surprise.  Then he flopped over on his side, and his hand smacked across Jenny’s bare foot.  Jenny screamed.

She sank to her knees beside Seth, laying her hands on him, unable to do anything at all.  She checked his pulse at his neck and his wrist, but there was nothing.  There wasn’t a heart left to beat.

Ashleigh approached her, fiddling with the slide on the shotgun.

“
Seth,” Jenny whispered, unable to believe what Ashleigh had done.  Her hand passed over Seth’s face.  No life remained in his eyes, just a fading echo of the shock in which he’d died.  The loss of him seemed too enormous to understand.  No more touching.  No more love.  No hope for the future.  The rest of her life would be as lonely as the first eighteen years, but worse, now that she’d glimpsed what could have been.  She would never recover from losing him.

Jenny looked up.

Ten seconds, she thought.  Ten seconds ago, she could have killed Ashleigh and saved Seth.  Just ten seconds.  Maybe she wasn’t fast enough, but she should have tried.

Jenny rose unsteadily on her feet.  She held out her hands to Ashleigh. Ashleigh was grunting, still trying to work the slide on the old gun.  It wasn’t budging. 

“Come,” Jenny said. “Come on.  Let me touch you.”

Ashleigh’s gray eyes looked down at Jenny’s.  Ashleigh gave the slide a final useless try, then dropped the gun.  She turned and ran away down the courthouse steps, through the wide avenue the crowd had made for her.

“Stop!” Jenny yelled. “Somebody stop her!”

But nobody did.

Jenny looked down at Seth and dropped to her knees again.  She touched his head, and a deep, sudden sob tore through her.  But she didn’t cry, not yet.  There was just the one wrenching sob.

She pulled him into her lap, holding up his head the way she had done the day he’d almost put too much into the healing.  The day he’d brought her father back to life.

But there was no one she could call to bring Seth back.  The only person with the power to do that was gone.

***

Ashleigh jogged on foot through the church, not sure where Cassie and Neesha were now, not really caring.  She found Neesha’s car keys.  Neesha had driven, since Ashleigh was supposed to be too traumatized.  Ashleigh was feeling a little traumatized.  The girls had really whacked her with the cooking pans.  And the meat tenderizer.  And then she’d lain back on the floor while Cassie and Neesha kicked the shit out of her.

And still she’d screwed it up, even with dedication like that.  Her head felt thick.  She hadn’t activated the crowd right.  She’d never made anyone kill before.  Usually she had them give her things, or do stupid little favors for her.  Maybe it took a special approach.  Maybe she hadn’t dialed it up enough.  Maybe she’d been relying too much on the influence she’d pumped out earlier in the day, shaking hands at the church and the Easter egg hunt, and it had faded. 

The plan had seemed so clear earlier, sometime before her multiple head wounds.  Neesha and Cassie had resisted the plan at first, but everybody eventually agreed with Ashleigh.  She’d had them spread the word about what had supposedly happened, calling everyone they knew.  They told everyone that everyone was meeting on the square to deal with it and everyone was bringing a gun just in case.

She’d meant to trigger an incident, but she’d ruined it.  The crowd wasn’t agitated enough.  She thought they were on edge, that maybe if she took the first shot, that would do it.  But instead she’d broken her first rule, gotten blood on her own hands.  And her second rule, in front of witnesses.  She’d been impatient.  She’d just wanted to see Seth and Jenny die.

Ashleigh climbed into Neesha’s Acura and cranked it, adjusted the seating to her body.  Neesha and Cassie were still back on the square.  Oh, well.  If they didn’t keep up, they were too slow.  Neesha had annoyed Ashleigh, anyway.   Ashleigh had wanted a very mixed crowd, because she thought a crowd with lots of black people would be scarier, but it looked like Neesha had called mostly white people.  She deserved to lose her car for a while.  Ashleigh drove out into the alley and pushed the accelerator.

But it wasn’t a complete loss.  Seth was gone, and that was half the battle.  She didn’t know what to do about Jenny.  She’d screwed up there, gotten over her head.  The gun had jammed or something.  She’d ended up standing in front of Jenny Mittens, basically unarmed, with nothing but Jenny’s murdered boyfriend between them.  She had to get out of there.

Ashleigh couldn’t turn her power off, but she could turn it up.  She could make someone like her, love her, adore her, worship her, put them in a state of complete bliss.  She could instigate all kinds of romantic encounters between anyone, make them lose control.  When she turned it up, really let the power flow, she could enchant and ensorcel anyone, even a crowd, if she could touch them.

She had a feeling Jenny Mittens was about to turn it up.  And Ashleigh did not want to be near that.  It was time to retreat and let Jenny burn herself out, if that’s what she was going to do.  Maybe she would die in the process.  There were a lot of armed guys out there, experienced hunters.  If they’d been too chicken to shoot for Ashleigh, maybe they would shoot to save themselves.  If they had the chance.

Ashleigh had her fallback plan ready to go.  On her cell phone, she dialed Darcy Metcalf, already waiting at Ashleigh’s house.

***

Jenny held Seth across her lap, rocking back and forth, completely stunned.  The crowd was quiet, with only an occasional whisper.  Then the whispering became louder and faster.  Jenny saw Dr. Maurice Goodling, in his Easter suit with a lily pinned to the pocket.  He was climbing into the flatbed of Dave Trenton’s white truck, the one parked slantwise in the middle of the road, the decoy that had drawn Seth into the crowd.  People whispered and nudged each other, and he straightened his coat while he sized up the crowd.

“
People,” Dr. Goodling said. “Good people of Fallen Oak.  I feel it is my duty, on behalf of the Lord, to speak to you at this time.  I feel the presence of the Spirit here today.  And I feel the presence of another, fallen spirit here tonight.”

There were gasps from the crowd, and some heads bowed to pray, eyes closed.

“There are times, we are told, when we must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he said. “And times when we must render unto God what is God’s.  We know all about rendering unto Caesar—”  A few people chuckled, but others cut them off with sharp looks. “—but, now and again, we are called upon to render unto God.”

Heads nodded as people took this in.

“We have heard information,” he said. “About illicit activities up at Barrett House.  Full moons, mostly.  The practice of witchery, also known as witchism.  Drugs.  Sexualization.  Our  children.  We have seen our town flipped inside out.  Our poor high school girls, so many drawn in by this witchdom.

“
I thought y’all were a little off when you started bringing me stories about witchcraft,” he said. “Thought I had to be the cool-headed one.  The one that kept everybody else from worrying.  But now I realize that sometimes, occult things do happen.  Darkness does move upon the earth, and we must strike back against it.”